feats which he accomplished, when submitted to the most
searching tests, were a refutation of the charge. But when it is
added that he wounded himself in order to do away with suspicion, the
accusation becomes so absurd as scarcely to merit refutation. It is
answered by the fact, that it was proved, from the nature of the
wounds, in both cases, that self-infliction was impossible. Nor is it
conceivable that any one should have been able so long to deceive
people who were constantly with him and always on the alert. And it is
remarkable that they who saw most of Caspar, and knew him best, were
most firmly convinced of his integrity,--whilst his traducers were,
almost without an exception, men who had never known him intimately.
Feuerbach, Daumer, Binder, Meier, Fuhrmann, and many others, maintain
his honesty in the strongest terms.

On the other hand, it is said, that it is equally impossible for a
person to have been kept in any community in the manner in which it is
asserted that he was kept; discovery was inevitable. But it must be
remembered that this instance does not stand alone. If search were made,
many cases of the same kind might be collected. It is by no means so
rare an occurrence for persons to be kept secluded in such a manner as
to conceal their existence from the world. Daumer mentions two similar
cases which happened about the same time. The very year that Caspar
Hauser appeared, the son of a lawyer, named Fleischmann, just deceased,
was discovered in a retired chamber of the house. He was thirty-eight
years old, and had been confined there since his twelfth year. The other
case, also mentioned by Feuerbach, was still more distressing. Dr. Horn
saw, in the infirmary at Salzburg, a girl, twenty-two years of age, who
had been brought up in a pig-sty. One of her legs was quite crooked,
from her having sat with them crossed; she grunted like a hog; and her
actions were "brutishly unseemly in human dress." Daumer also relates a
third case, which was made the subject of a romantic story published in
a Nuremberg paper, but which, he says, lacks confirmation. It was the
discovery, in a secret place, of the grown-up son of a clergyman by his
housekeeper. Whether this be true or not, both Feuerbach and Daumer
believe that many similar instances do exist, which never come to light.
It is not impossible, therefore, that Caspar Hauser was confined in a
cellar to which none but his keeper sought entrance. Who would su